WOMAN ATTACKED IN ALLEY NEAR LO-DO
I read on to read that a woman’s body was found in an alley in lower downtown, her throat ripped open, and animal-like teeth seemed to have made the tears the coroner had reported. Grabbing my notepad, I ripped off Dani’s note, set it aside, and wrote down the victim’s name, Marci Vanhoose. I then did a Google search of her name and found her Facebook page. Reading that, I could see she was a college student at Denver U and had only been 19. She had been walking home from the bars in Lo-Do when she never reported back home. Her family placed some sad messages on her page with a lot of feedback and condolences. I read them all, but they seemed to be pretty generic. I then began to scroll through her photos and stopped when a picture caught my eye: A tall, young man had his arm slung around her shoulders in what looked like a dark club or possibly a house party. They were both smiling but the man’s eyes had that silver tint to them. Realizing it could have been the flash, I told myself it probably was and continued to scroll. But something about the guy was familiar to me, so I scrolled back to the photo and looked at it again. Yes, I’d seen that guy at Bash before. There was no caption or tag to tell me the guy’s name, but I’d know if I saw him again.
After falling down the rabbit hole of searches and social media, I only had one solid “animal attack” that seemed like it was most likely a vampire murder, and it was this girl, Marci. I looked at the clock on the microwave and saw it was almost noon. I didn’t have much planned for the day except a haircut and few mundane errands. As I searched the fridge for bread and lunchmeat, I thought about what Dani had told me last night and it began to really bother me that she was a bounty hunter. That she was paid to kill people. Was it just humans she killed? We hadn’t gotten that far in the conversation before our lust had taken over. What if we were to be together? Would it even work? Do humans and vampires have relationships that last? I knew they couldn’t go in the sun. How would that affect everything? Would she stop bounty-hunting if I asked her to? She’d mentioned wanting to stop, at least. So many questions with zero answers. But we would be addressing them eventually—that was a fact. But first, I had to try and save my own life.
12
Daniela
I glanced at Angie sitting on the couch watching TV and reached for the doorknob, glad the sun had sunk below the mountains so I could leave the damn townhouse. “I’m off to work, have a good night, girl!”
I closed and locked the door behind me, knowing creatures like me lurked in all the dark and scary places and wanted to keep my roommate safe from it all. On my way to meet Judson at Bash, I stopped into a chain drugstore and picked up some silicone earplugs. Once in the car, I opened the package and tried one on. They were a clear white color and fit nicely in my ears. After turning up the volume on the radio to ear-bleeding levels, I shoved another earplug in and smiled in satisfaction that they had worked so nicely to protect my sensitive hearing.
Damn vampire problems.
I took out the earplugs and threw them in my clutch for use later on when Innubis was playing.
I arrived at the club early to talk to my sexy human before he had to be onstage. I parked around the back and saw his bike parked there, too. I made my way in through the back door, as Judson had texted me the code earlier, and found myself in the backstage-type area of the place. I quickly found him tuning his guitar. He was humming along with the chords he played. I stood for several seconds watching him until he must have sensed my presence and looked up.
Grinning, he said, “Hey, beautiful.”
I walked over and sat in his lap after he put the guitar down. “Hey, yourself. How was your day?”
“Awesome. I got Kirk to send me all the, uh, animal attacks from recently, so I can’t wait to go through them. I also did a lot of research myself, found a few interesting things.” He smiled proudly.
“Is that so?” I asked, grinning back at him. Then I looked around. “Where is everyone else?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know, probably running late. Or already drunk. I’m always the first one here. Early.”
“Nerdy rocker, I like it!” I teased.
He chuckled. “Something like that.”
“So, I have a question, is this your only job? Or do you do something during the day? I mean, does this even pay?” I asked, because I’d been wondering. His file hadn’t said anything about a day job.
“Yes, the club pays me five hundred a week. Whether we play one night or seven, it’s all the same.” He patted my butt to indicate I stand. “And we pick up other gigs on slow weeks at other clubs.”
“Good to know, just glad I wasn’t gonna have to support your bum ass,” I replied with a wink.
He laughed and grabbed his guitar from the floor and began removing the strap to replace it with a different one. “Nah, if I didn’t have this gig, I’d go work somewhere. I’m pretty good at fixing cars. Plus,
